Sunday, 20 April 2014

Austrian army scraps transport, issues travelcards

This is really not an April 1st post. The Austrian army is to scrap much of its transport fleet of Pinzgauer carriers before the next major maintenance cycle to save money. The rugged all-terrain vehicles made by Steyr-Puch, the historic Austrian vehicle-makers, cost too much to maintain and consume too much fuel - quoted as 20-30 litres per 100km. Other utility vehicles including the Puch G - a clone of the Merc G - and the Steyr 12M18 truck will be disposed of on an ad-hoc basis as repairs become due. The army will instead rely on public transport - buses and trains.

The Pinzgauer, was the vehicle the MOD purchased at £100Million with the encouragement of some UK politicians, and proved to be utterly useless in Afganistan against an insurgency, being particularly vulnerable to mines. No?

Perhaps the public transport authorities will follow the example of some States in the USA which allow service personnel in uniform to travel for free. Mind you, that's a country where uniformed military personnel are treated as heroes and not pariahs.Penseivat